you carry your burdens with a slight stoop of your frame. looking at you, no one would suspect, your body aches from the onslaught of many storms. your face, well-worn book, scratched page by page, shines with love. time has made a map on your skin, scribbled with grooves, scars and webbed lines. you mend our broken bones with sap, our shattered hearts with green. your wrinkled hands are salve to our misdeeds and disastrous accidents. with textured depths and firm roots, you show us your wisdom as we rise, flying with the gulls. we carry your words wherever we go.
wild lilac blooms along
unpaved path, stony with dust-
lighthouse flickers- steady
Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Haibun Monday ~ A tribute to the beauty and wisdom of mothers and grandmothers ~ Please join us when the pub doors open at 3pm EST ~ Thanks for the visit ~
Amazing how beautiful a tree can mend itself... and how much it brings its blessing. I found this prompt a bit challenging... so I checked out how you had written it.
ReplyDeleteEven if odd it seems or grows, still plenty of wisdom shows.
ReplyDeleteA beautiful haibun Grace and I so love trees and their wisdom. 'your face, well-worn book, scratched page by page, shines with love' is my favourite line :o)
ReplyDeleteI love the way you communicate with your self-restoring tree, Grace - and we both wrote about nature this week!
ReplyDeleteAh, the beauty of trees, and the way they reflect their experiences. Just like us, really.
ReplyDeleteIn nature, it is the trees of the forest, park or jungle that nurture the very air we breath, give of themselves to provide building blocks, and create sanctuaries for our troubled souls.
ReplyDeleteI love that you acknowledge the beauty in the knots and scars.
ReplyDeleteI like those old trees. I remember that Ted talk you linked to on trees some time ago.
ReplyDeleteI do so love the beauty that is trees and I could watch them forever.
ReplyDeleteI could read your words forever too - I do wish I had wrote them, but feel I could never offer (them) the justice you have.
I love the haiku.
ReplyDeleteTake a deep breath from the sobering prolog to the beautiful haiku.
ReplyDeleteYou gave us a great reminder of how a tree is truly a living thing, not just something to make books from. That one looks like it's been around lots longer than I. The lilac covered path was a very nice touch
ReplyDelete'time has made a map on your skin' - :).
ReplyDeletesuch a beautiful take. the prose is filled with very very very good imagery. i particularly love this one: "your face, well-worn book, scratched page by page, shines with love. "
ReplyDeletelove the haiku too!
Your haiku creates such hauntingly rustic images in my mind - love it!
ReplyDeleteA fitting tribute to the wonder of nature which bless us with so many gifts. The features are amazingly well detailed and beatiful!
ReplyDeleteI, too, am lucky enough to have a wise Momma tree who shines and salves my misdeeds. A steady lighthouse. This is a beautifully worded, apt comparison.
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely beautiful. The likening of the tree to the aging mother or grandmother....and the beautiful haiku where she becomes the steady, firm lighthouse -- that guides us all. Absolutely beautiful.
ReplyDeleteLoved the way the narrative surprised by merging the human with the natural.
ReplyDeleteLovely depiction of nature weaving its own salve and mending its own wounds.
ReplyDeleteHow readily your words would lend themselves to some of the wise elders in our lives, rooted as firmly as the tree. This made me think of my parents. Beautifully written.
ReplyDeletelike the old wise grandmother tree in Pocahontas, love the wisdom of old women, handed down with rough hands but soft words and hearts, love your words that go back and forth from nature to humanity.
ReplyDeleteWhat lovely metaphors you weave in this, Grace. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteTrees are so amazing! They seem to have all the patience in the world growing as they do.
ReplyDeleteA lovely weaving of words ... the haiku: exquisite.
ReplyDelete